Tag: free speech

Letitia James’ Crusade Against Abortion Pill Reversal Is Also Killing Free Speech

State attorneys general are duty-bound to seek justice for the weak and powerless, not to use their immense power to harass them. But New York Attorney General Letitia James’ policing of private conversations about the abortion pill reversal (APR) protocol amounts to a cynical abuse of state power.

Two years ago, James launched a legal assault on Heartbeat International and 11 affiliated pregnancy centers in New York. She claimed the centers and Heartbeat — the largest network of pregnancy help organizations in the world — had engaged in false advertising, supposedly deceiving women by sharing scientific findings supporting the safety and effectiveness of APR.

APR is a safe and effective way for a woman to improve her odds of continuing her pregnancy to term after she has ingested mifepristone — the first pill in an abortion drug regimen designed to block progesterone from the growing baby. A worldwide network of more than 1,500 health care professionals is available to prescribe bioidentical progesterone to counteract the mifepristone in order to reverse its effects. Most notably, statistics suggest that more than 8,000 babies have been saved through the abortion pill reversal protocol.

Thousands of smiling — living — babies and emotional testimonies of grateful moms illustrate the success of a chosen medical treatment. And James “has no business butting into the intimate medical decision of [a] … mother.” It’s why Heartbeat and its New York affiliates filed their own lawsuit, arguing that defendant James has provided “no evidence of fraud, misrepresentation, material omission, or harm to anyone” in providing free services or speaking about the safety and efficacy of APR.

This week, Heartbeat and its affiliates have their day in court. On Wednesday, April 15, their attorneys argued that James’ hostile lawsuit should be dismissed because it targets free speech and participation in public debate. James’ lawsuit is a classic Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP). Or, more bluntly, James’ efforts amount to a bully’s legal slap in the face to keep small pro-life nonprofits from sharing a life-saving message she doesn’t like.

Her friends have called her a “voice for the voiceless.” She claims to “speak truth to power, and challenge the status quo.” And she frequently talks of “using [her] position to address the needs of those who are locked out of the sunshine of opportunity.”

But the attorney general ought not ignore the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent defense of free speech rights, even when offering medical services. At the end of March, the court delivered an 8-1 decision in Chiles v. Salazar, noting that counseling conversations are speech and Colorado cannot silence viewpoints in the counseling room. The majority warned that “[t]oday, tomorrow, and forever, too, any professional speech that deviates from ‘current beliefs about the safety and efficacy of various medical treatments’ could be silenced with relative ease.”

Sensitive to the danger of stifling innovation in medicine, they continued, “Medical consensus, too, is not static; it evolves and always has. A prevailing standard of care may reflect what most practitioners believe today, but it cannot mark the outer boundary of what they may say tomorrow.”

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Zelensky Signs Law Against Antisemitism in Ukraine: Up to 8 Years in Prison

Ukraine has moved into a new phase in its legal response to antisemitism. On April 14, 2026, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed Law No. 2037-IX, introducing criminal liability for antisemitic acts and creating a graduated scale of punishment, from fines and restrictions on liberty to prison terms of up to eight years.

For Israeli readers, this is not merely a technical legal development. It is a moral and political signal. At a time when antisemitism is again rising in many parts of the world and Jewish communities are living with renewed anxiety, Ukraine is trying to draw a firmer legal boundary. Antisemitism is no longer being addressed only through public condemnation or symbolic declarations. It is now being tied more directly to criminal responsibility.

From legal definition to criminal punishment

This law did not appear out of nowhere. In September 2021, Ukraine’s parliament adopted the foundational law “On Preventing and Combating Antisemitism in Ukraine.” That earlier legislation gave a legal definition of antisemitism, listed its manifestations, and established the principle that such acts must carry responsibility. Zelensky signed that law the following month.

But definition alone was never enough. The next step was Bill No. 5110, designed to place antisemitism within the logic of criminal prosecution by amending Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Parliament approved the bill in February 2022, and Zelensky’s signature has now given that framework full legal force.

What the new law changes

Under the new system, incitement to hatred, discrimination, restriction of rights, or other public acts motivated by antisemitism can be punished by fines, restraint of liberty, or imprisonment for up to three years. The law also allows for disqualification from holding certain positions or engaging in certain professional activities.

If such acts are accompanied by violence, threats, deception, or are committed by an official, the punishment becomes harsher and can rise to five years in prison.

If the offense is committed by an organized group or leads to grave consequences, the sentence may range from five to eight years. That upper threshold is what gives this law particular resonance far beyond Ukraine itself.

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The Tyranny Of Compelled Speech

While censorship is often the main focus of discussions about free speech, there’s a related phenomenon that can do just as much damage to a free society. Not by preventing people from saying things they believe in, but by forcing them to say things they do not.

Compelled speech requires people to use certain words or phrases, or to partake in upholding certain ideological beliefs. It is just as dangerous to free expression as overt censorship.

The constant recitation of indigenous “land acknowledgements” illustrates Canada’s shift towards enforced mass-compliance on complicated social issues. These statements have become ubiquitous in Canadian public life: at schools, workplaces, government functions, ceremonies, and sporting events. Institutions display them on websites, documents, email signatures, and social media. A busy person in Canada may come across dozens of land acknowledgements per day in various contexts.

Although framed as optional gestures of respect, many organizations now have policies mandating land acknowledgements; in other circumstances, social pressure can make them seem obligatory even if they’re not.

Land acknowledgements have morphed well beyond a simple sharing of history into something much more problematic: they have become a sort of sacred ritual with near-spiritual implications, tying certain ethnic groups to ownership over nature itself. When unpacked, there is a lot being said between the lines.

Stepping out of line on land acknowledgements can set off a variety of hostile reactions, ranging from social condemnation to significant legal consequences. Geoffrey Horsman is a biochemistry professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont. As a parent of three children in the local school system and a member of his local school’s parent council, he noted the growing politicization of the regional school system. Of particular concern was the practice of opening every meeting with a land acknowledgement, which took up valuable time and reinforced what he considers a divisive premise.

“I don’t think there is anything good that can come out of the idea that a certain ethnic group are the true inheritors of this land,” Horsman said in an interview. But when he raised his objections about the practice, he encountered immediate resistance. In a series of meetings with Waterloo Region District School Board staff, he was told that even discussing the issue was off the table. He has since brought a legal case against the board.

Catherine Kronas, the mother of a student attending Ancaster High Secondary School in Hamilton, Ont., actually lost her position as an elected member of her school council last year after she politely disagreed with land statements being read out loud before meetings. “School councils should decide what gets said in their meetings, and we shouldn’t have to recite something mandated by the government,” she told me. Kronas was reinstated only after threatening legal action.

Horsman’s and Kronas’s cases are both about indigenous land acknowledgements, but the issues they raise run deeper. They could have been challenging any form of imposed ideological speech. In fact, many Canadian governments and institutions are developing a worrying track record of legally enforcing ideological language on a number of topics

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SURPRISE: Justice Jackson Gets NUKED by Fellow Leftist Justice Kagan For Writing This Insane Dissent in Case Regarding Conversion Therapy Ban for LGBTQ Minors

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has become such an embarrassing spectacle on the Supreme Court that even her fellow leftists appear to be tiring of her.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, The US Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 8-1 against Colorado’s conversion therapy ban for LGBTQ minors. Jackson was the lone dissenter.

The lawsuit was filed by Christian talk therapist Kaley Chiles, who argued that Colorado’s ban on her talk therapy methods violated her First Amendment rights.

In an insane 35-page dissent, Jackson essentially said that therapists like Chiles should not have the same free speech rights as other Americans.

“Professional medical speech does not intersect with the marketplace of ideas: ‘In the context of medical practice, we insist upon competence, not debate,’” she wrote. “Treatment standards exist in America.”

“It threatens to impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect,” she added. “It extends the Constitution into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion. And it ultimately risks grave harm to Americans’ health and well-being.”

She also attacked the Court for ‘playing with fire’, which could ‘burn Americans.’

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British Law Enforcement No Longer Policing Social Media Posts Looking for ‘Non-Crime Hate Incidents’, as Commissioner Celebrates Increased Ability To Investigate Real Criminals

British police are back to investigating crime, not hurt feelings.

The United Kingdom is the leading country in incarcerating citizens for social media posts, and – what’s worse – police wasted time and resources with something called ‘non-crime hate incidents’.

You read it right: perfectly legal posts.

But now, the police are no longer involved in these internet arguments, and that has enabled officers to ‘solve more real crimes’.

The Telegraph reported:

“Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the force had doubled the number of real hate crimes that it had solved since he announced in December last year that his force would no longer investigate non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs).

In an exclusive article for The Telegraph, he said this change had already saved officers ‘thousands of hours’, enabling them to devote more time to ‘preventing and solving crime, protecting vulnerable people, and responding to real risks of harm’.”

It’s been two days since Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the abolition of NCHIs nationally.

“Sir Mark, whose force pre-empted the national move, said NCHIs had ‘eroded’ the public’s trust in the police because of ‘unclear guidance’ from policing bodies and the Government on how to apply them.

Officers had been knocking on people’s doors to deal with ‘online squabbles and everyday disagreements that never met the threshold of criminality’, he said.”

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The Free Speech Act: A Demolition Plan For Britain’s Speech Laws

The Adam Smith Institute has published the Free Speech Act 2026, a model bill that would dismantle virtually the entire legal architecture the British state uses to police speech.

Written by Preston Byrne, an Adam Smith Institute Senior Fellow, alongside co-authors Elijah Granet and Michael Reiners, the legislation runs to 32 sections and seven schedules.

It would repeal seven entire Acts of Parliament, create a statutory right to free expression, ban the state from censoring lawful speech directly or through third parties, and give citizens a private right of action to sue when their rights are violated.

Byrne, a dual-qualified English solicitor and US attorney, is best known as the lawyer who responds to Ofcom’s enforcement notices with cartoon hamsters.

He represents 4chan in its federal lawsuit against the UK’s speech regulator in Washington, D.C., and acts for every current US-based enforcement target of the Online Safety Act.

He is also the architect of the GRANITE Act, the first foreign censorship shield bill in American history, which passed the Wyoming House of Representatives 46-12 before running out of time in the state Senate.

All of that, Byrne writes, was prologue. “The big fight, the real fight, is to restore free speech in the UK. Publishing this Model Bill today, we mean to start it.”

The Bill’s stated purpose is to answer a single question: “If the UK wanted to enact something like the First Amendment, what would the resulting statute look like?”

The answer is a controlled demolition.

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US State Dept Settles Free Speech Suppression Lawsuit

The US State Department has settled a lawsuit brought by The Daily Wire, The Federalist, and the State of Texas, accepting a consent decree that bars it from using, financing, or promoting technology designed to suppress or “fact-check” the constitutionally protected speech of American citizens and domestic media outlets.

The settlement also prohibits the Department from working with foreign governments or NGOs for those purposes, whether through formal agreements or informal arrangements.

We obtained a copy of the joint motion for you here.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance, which represented The Daily Wire and The Federalist, secured what amounts to a binding admission that the government had been doing exactly what it was accused of. The Department now acknowledges that its plaintiffs’ speech on COVID-19, sexual ethics, the biological nature of sex, and election integrity was constitutionally protected all along. It took three years of litigation to get the government to say that out loud.

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“No One Knows What Will Happen Now”: Justice Jackson Warns Against Unbridled Free Speech

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is again warning of a growing threat to the nation. In her lone dissent in Chiles v. Salazar, Jackson observed that “to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now.” The ominous tone stemmed from the fact that free speech had prevailed over state-imposed orthodoxy in a Colorado case.

Eight justices, including her two liberal colleagues, ruled that Colorado could not prevent licensed counselors from “any practice or treatment” that “attempts or purports to change” a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The win for free speech was catastrophic for Jackson and many on the left. Allowing counselors to discuss the causes and basis for sexual orientation changes, Jackson maintained, would “open a can of worms.” It would be far better for the majority to simply silence such dissenting voices in the name of science.

The dissent in Chiles is only the latest example of the chilling jurisprudence of Justice Jackson, including a pronounced dismissal of free speech values. Consider the holding of her colleagues that Jackson finds so horrific.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the First Amendment “reflects … a judgment that every American possesses an inalienable right to think and speak freely, and a faith in the free marketplace of ideas as the best means for discovering truth … any law that suppresses speech based on viewpoint represents an ‘egregious’ assault on both of those commitments.”

What a nightmare.

Instead, Jackson would have declared the ban on anything deemed “conversion therapy” to be “conduct,” not speech.

It is that easy.

You simply impose an orthodoxy and then treat any dissenters as being regulated for their conduct, not their viewpoints.

Justice Elena Kagan could not withhold her frustration with her colleague, noting that “[b]ecause the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, the constitutional issue is straightforward.” She added that Jackson’s view “rests on reimagining—and in that way collapsing—the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.”

Other countries have embraced Jackson’s permissive approach to speech curtailment.

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Canada’s House of Commons passes ‘anti-Christian’ bill that would criminalize quoting Bible

The majority of Canadian MPs have voted to pass a Liberal bill that will allow the criminalization of religious expression and belief when quoting parts of the Bible, including about homosexuality and gender.

Early Wednesday evening, MPs from the Liberal Party and the Bloc Québécois, in a 186–137 vote, passed Bill C-9, known as the “Combatting Hate Act.” Conservatives, NDP, and Green Party MPs voted against the bill in a rare form of unity among the usually opposing parties.

The bill now heads to Canada’s rubber-stamp Senate for review.

A last-minute effort by the Conservatives to change the wording of the bill failed to pass.

Earlier this week, Liberal MPs forced the bill through the report stage, after earlier, as reported by LifeSiteNews, shutting down all debate on the bill in the committee stage.

In comments sent to LifeSiteNews, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) blasted the passage of Bill C-9 and called upon “Christians and pro-life advocates to prepare for increasing hostility.”

“With the passage of Bill C-9 in the House, Christians and pro-life advocates will almost certainly face an entirely new level of hostility, as the door swings open to actual persecution under a cloak of supposed legality,” said CLC’s Campaigns Manager David Cooke, who is also a Christian pastor.

Cooke said the Bill C-9 was framed as a law going after “hate,” but, in reality, it is a bill that religious leaders from various faith communities “say could lead to hate-related charges against believers – empowers ideologically-driven police officers and judges to target, for the first time, the very word of God on matters of life, family, and faith.”

“We must prepare for the battle ahead,” said Cooke, adding Canadians must “commit” to the “One who has won the ultimate victory over every foe, demonstrated by His resurrection on that first Easter morning.”

CLC Director of Political Operations Jack Fonseca noted that Bill C-9 must be stopped in its tracks in the Senate, but admitted it will be a hard battle, as most of the senators were appointed by former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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Settlement Stops Government From Using Social Media As ‘Speech Police’

The government censorship machine took a huge hit Tuesday in a historic win for First Amendment rights. 

What is being billed as an “unprecedented” agreement will bar the three government agencies central to killing speech the Biden administration didn’t like from pressuring social media platforms from doing so in the future. 

“This case began with a suspicion, that blossomed into fact, that led to Congressional hearings and an Executive Order that government censorship of Americans’ social media posts should end,” said John Vecchione, Senior Litigation Counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), the nonprofit civil rights group that has battled in courts for years to bring justice to victims of government-led speech suppression. 

Also celebrating, Sen. Eric Schmitt, who, as Missouri’s attorney general, sued the Biden administration for “brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missourians.” 

“This is a massive win for the First Amendment and for every American who believes in free speech,” the Missouri Republican said in a press release, adding that President Biden’s tenure in office brought “the most aggressively liberal and antiliberty excesses of government that America has ever seen.”

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